Jerry Del Collianio — the end of radio

by Howard Lapides

“Hello Honey, it’s me. What did you think when you heard me back on the radio? I am the morning DJ, on W*O*L*D, playing all the hits for you, wherever you may be.” (Words and music by Harry Chapin, “W*O*L*D”.)

Once, not long ago, radio, AM stations and FM, was special. Always entertaining, radio found new music and DJs told us about what the new. Always, radio made listeners wonder and it’s hard to accept how far radio has fallen.

Jerry Del Colliano knows the acme and the nadir of radio. He lived the height of radio success and watched its horrific descent into nothingness. When he says the end of radio is now, not tomorrow, you must believe him.

Knowing Jerry Del Colliano, as I do. Reading his blog, “Inside Music Media” and speaking, with him, I sense I’m sitting Shiva for an old, trusted and loyal friend – radio. Radio is not yet dead. Still, we’d be foolish to believe radio wasn’t near the end.

I talk to men and women who love radio, but want to murder the messenger. They say Del Colliano sells doom. “Why doesn’t he focus on the answer to save radio,” they ask, “rather than focusing on failures?”

Del Colliano has answers. His answers speak to the future of radio, not its past. As any unknown or uncertain terrain, the future is sketchy and scary for most of us. Many try to stop his message.

Most important, Del Colliano inspires thought. Inspiring thought is his greatest gift. Converting thought into action is our job, not his.

Del Colliano is a polarizing figure. Many years ago, I learned not to pick a fight, with someone who buys ink by the barrel; that is, the media. By exposing the sins of media consolidators, Del Colliano takes aim at those who buy ink, figuratively, by the barrel.

“You haven’t made it, in Hollywood, until somebody wants you dead,” is an old saying. Radio consolidators and corporate owners want Del Colliano silenced. He must be right.

I spoke with some of his harshest critics, recently. The irony is rich. Off the record, they speak with great respect, even admiration. For the record, they defile him.

Radio is on life-support, slipping into and out of a coma, unlikely to see the light again. Del Colliano beats this drum loudest, but he’s first to beat the drum, most loudly, for a new radio day. Radio, he says, is in the delivery business, using Model-Ts in an age of spaceships.

The big record labels, such as Warner Music Group or EMI, are along for the ride into a void. The labels cling to ways that didn’t work yesterday and won’t tomorrow. Is it a fluke, how radio and labels are crumbling together?

Del Colliano urges we look to the future, not to the past. Listen to the young, mimic what they do. Get a grip, he says, it’s not back to the future, but into the future. Click here to radio the complete Grub Street Interview, with Jerry Del Colliano.

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Tim Byrd, the Byrdman, feature interview

“Byrd is the unknown A-list DJ,” says New York media maven, Leroy Jones. “No, he doesn’t work with a bag on his head, but he’s among the best DJs. He’s missing from top ten lists, too often.”

“Tim Byrd went one-for-one with ‘Cousin Brucie,’ for years,” says Jones, “but when someone thinks of New York City radio, she or he overlooks Byrd. The only radio sin Byrd committed is not working Los Angeles.

“Working LA, with freedom, he’d give The Real Don Steele a run. I know it’s a sacrilege to say any DJ is as good as was Steele,” says Jones. “Yet, Byrd is in that league, with Rich ‘Brother” Robin, Ken ‘Beaver Cleaver’ Levine” and maybe one or two other LARPs.

Comments about the radio work of Tim “Byrdman” Byrd seem deep in hyperbole. As Stan Klees, co-founder of the Juno Awards says, “If you did it and you tell, it isn’t bragging.” Tim Byrd did it and does it.

Early in his career, Byrd had an unheard-of 42 share, for his evening shift, on the renowned WAPE-AM, in Jacksonville. More recently, he took his evening show, on WRMF-FM, in West Palm Beach, from last to second place, in one rating period. The “it,” Tim Byrd does, is the best music radio in America and listeners respond.

Dick Summer worked with Byrd at WPIX-AM, in New York City. He says, “Tim is the complete radio personality.” Batt Johnson worked, with Byrd, at WKHK-FM, also in New York. He says, “Tim became my brother almost the day I met him.

“Byrd is fiercely fun-loving, hard-working and dedicated,” says Johnson. “He’s not afraid of his feelings. He’s not afraid to be kind. He’s not afraid to do right, on or off the air.

“There was an older African-American woman living in his building,” says Johnson. “She became ill and couldn’t work. Tim took it upon himself to pay her rent and give her money for food.”

Matt Seinberg, of Big Apple Air Checks, tells a similar story. “My family and I were stranded, in Florida, near West Palm Beach. All the hotels and motels were full. Yeah, I know, but it was June.

“We had nowhere to go and knew no one, except Tim,” says Seinberg. “I phoned him. In no time, Tim got us into a top hotel. We got much needed rest before the flight back to New York.”

“Such acts define the person,” says Batt Johnson.

Byrd made a career of hard choices. When others opted to take much abuse, to keep a job, Byrd quit. His career mixed small and large radio markets, without pattern.

For twenty years, Byrd worked New York City, the top radio market, in the USA. He also worked VH-1 for four and one-half years; he was the favourite VJ of Phil Collins and Carly Simon. The story of Tim “Byrdman” Byrd confirms talent and principle breed success.

In this exclusive, in-depth interview, Tim Byrd talks about how the only boy, of a preacher man, found success. Click here to read the full interview.

Streeter Click

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Rainy Nights in Bangkok: interview with Timothy Hallinan

Introduction by Shadoe Stevens

Timothy Hallinan is simply the smartest, most creative person I know and the most inspiring. When we met, we became instant friends. Tim has been one of my best friends, all my adult life.

I met Tim, in 1970. I came to Los Angeles to work KHJ-AM and Tim was doing station promotion. He came up with some of the most innovative, creative campaigns Bill Drake and RKO General, which owned KHJ-AM, delivered. We met when Tim took some head shots, of me, for station promotions.

A year or two later, we were neighbours in Topanga Canyon. I was creating the “World Famous” KROQ-FM and Tim had formed Stone Hallinan Consulting. Stone Hallinan was an international public relations (PR) firm, with offices in LA, New York City and London, England.

Despite his success in PR, all Tim wanted to do was to write. He wrote and wrote. Every novel he’s written has received critical acclaim.

About his new novel, “Breathing Water,” Maddy van Hertbruggen writes, it’s “truly an excellent book – I don’t know how Hallinan can get any better – he set the bar … high for himself! Hallinan sprinkles perfectly wrought phrases throughout the narrative, like gems falling on to the pages, never failing to delight. In some ways, it’s harder to write a review for a book you love …. The tendency is to want to put out all sorts of superlatives, to gush with adjectives. Please indulge me for a moment: the book is extraordinary, magnificent, exceptional, heart shaking, heart breaking, brilliant. As I read this book, I laughed, I cried, I gasped, but I never … yawned. “Breathing Water” is a great book. Period” (from ReviewingTheEvidence.com, August 2009).

“Breathing Water” is the latest book in the Bangkok Series. This may be the only thriller series, in the world, in which the hero is a family. The family includes Poke Rafferty, an American writer living in Bangkok; his wife, Rose, a former bar worker, and Miaow, the ten-year-old street child they adopted.

At the core of these books by Tim Hallinan, there’s the love and tenderness of a family trying to stay together, while separated by culture, language, religion and, often, hair-raising events born out of real-life. Tim writes multilayered stories. His stories are rich, with colours, engaging, unforgettable characters and love. The love is of the family, of life and of the Thai people.

His mysteries are compelling and unpredictable. A novel by Tim is hard to put down. As thrillers, his books are riveting. At the same time, Tim writes with incredible wit and unexpected, laugh-out-loud humour.

I recommend “Breathing Water.” After reading it, I’m sure you’ll rush out to pick up the other novels in Bangkok Series. I’m certain you’ll find them so rewarding, you’ll forage used books stores for the six novels in his Simeon Grist Series, too.

There’s no one like Tim Hallinan. He’s one of the finest writers, of our time, and among the best storytellers. Click here to read an exclusive interview, with Tim Hallinan, and find out why.

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